Carjacking defendant found guilty — but where is he?

Suspect disappeared in September

April 18, 2013|By Clifford Ward, Special to the Tribune

(Tribune illustration)

The question of whether there was proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Michael Buhrman had committed a carjacking was answered quickly Wednesday when a DuPage County jury took little time convicting him.

That left a more tantalizing question unanswered: Just where is the former nuclear power plant operator-turned-alleged fugitive?

After deliberating for about an hour, jurors found Buhrman, 32, of Coal City, guilty of donning a latex old-man mask and stealing a car at gunpoint from the parking lot of a Woodridge department store in May 2012.

But Buhrman disappeared last September while out on bond and was tried in absentia after Judge Kathryn Creswell ruled at the trial's outset Tuesday that he had willfully absented himself.

Buhrman was arrested within minutes of the alleged vehicle hijacking, which took place in a Kohl's parking lot on 75th Street. The victim testified Tuesday that she was taking a work break and sitting in her car talking on the phone with her husband when the "old man" approached her, pointed a gun at her chin and stole her 2000 Pontiac Grand Am.

She alerted a customer who was entering the store, and he hopped into his SUV and tailed the Grand Am, calling police to give updates on its location. Police stopped the vehicle minutes later and found Buhrman behind the wheel with the mask and handgun inside.

As a condition of bond, Buhrman, who worked as a licensed nuclear power plant operator at the Dresden facility in Morris, was outfitted with a GPS tracker, which gave off an alert last September. Police went to his home and found the device with its ankle strap sliced in two, a small amount of blood on the bed and some signs that the home had been ransacked.

In a pretrial hearing, a state forensic investigator said she believed the house had been staged to appear as if someone had broken in. Authorities also presented evidence that Buhrman had withdrawn $14,000 from a bank account three days before he went missing.

His attorney, Richard Blass, said he still believes that Buhrman, a Navy veteran, did not voluntarily leave the area. But Assistant State's Attorney Demetri Demopoulos said there was no evidence to support that belief.

The clerk, a young mother of three, eventually had to quit her job because she said working at night became too stressful after she was robbed.

"I'm glad it's over and I'm glad that it came out that he was guilty," she said Wednesday.

If he is apprehended, Buhrman faces a lengthy prison sentence — the aggravated vehicular hijacking charge carries a six- to 30-year prison term, and there's a 15-year add-on for committing the crime with a firearm. Creswell set a May sentencing date.